How to remove Matrixstar.net pop-ups? — Fix Guide

Written by Wilbur Woodham
Matrixstar.net pop-up alerts may show up unexpectedly, covering the material of the site you visited or opening your web browser when you do not wish it to be opened.

Clicking on the Matrixstar.net advertisement can cause the injection of different malware or unwanted programs. In this guide, you will see the tutorial of Matrixstar.net popups clearing in several methods, and also checking your PC for extra viruses presence.

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What are Matrixstar.net pop-ups?

Matrixstar.net popups are an outcome of adware activity. Adware is a kind of malware that demonstrates to you the pay-per-view of pay-per-click promotions, which generates a major volume of income for adware suppliers. These advertisements might include sometimes shocking content, or have a link to harmful content/website, considering that adware maintainers have no reason to check the goodness of the material they are going to reveal – their solitary target is money.

Matrixstar.net push notification

Matrixstar.net push notification.

Pop-up promotions itself is an excellent, low-cost and also extremely successful advertising method1. It makes it possible for the seller to link the buyers’ interest to their website, as well as the customers to get the dynamic updates on the goods they want to purchase. When the consumer will get a pop-up alert that the TV set he desires to buy is available at the online shop he/she saw earlier with a 15% price cut, one will certainly use this chance and purchase it. Considering the extremely low cost for the popups and their targeting, such an advertising and marketing instrument is a favorite thing amidst the advertising departments of big internet retail stores.

However, such a profitable scheme could not be missed by virus developers. Ability to demonstrate the popup ads by force to the victims of malware attack is a great basis for malicious adjustments with the popup advertisements. And Matrixstar.net ads is among hundreds that are “employed” in this scheme.

Here is a summary for the Matrixstar.net
SiteMatrixstar.net
HostingAS14618 Amazon.com, Inc.
United States, Ashburn
Infection TypeAdware, Push notifications, Unwanted Ads, Pop-up Ads
IP Address3.86.130.101
SymptomsAnnoying pop-up ads in the right corner.
Similar behaviorAdashiscloth, Smartcaptchasolve, Peepholetwin
Fix Tool
To remove possible virus infections, try to scan your PC

How have I got the Matrixstar.net virus?

There are a huge amount of methods of becoming infected by the adware that result in the Matrixstar.net popups storm. A lion’s part of this virus instances is after the freeware or cracked programs, that are spread on the peering networks. Freeware may also be downloaded from the official site, and the adware is presented as a legitimate bundled program.

There is no need to blame yourself. A number of users frequently work with the unreliable programs from untrusted sources: abandonware, a wide range of apps that are free, or perhaps hacked programs. All of these types of software are dangerous, due to the fact that it is very simple to integrate a Matrixstar.net malware under the cover of part of the license hacking script, or as a part of the self-made algoritm inside of the Windows optimization tool.

Matrixstar.net popup malware can additionally be hidden in the advertisement somewhere on the strange web page. Such sites are usually filled with intense and blinking ads, and their owners often permit any type of promos to be posted on their web page. Thus, clicking on such banners is a risky thing: only the advertisement provider knows what will happen when you press this advertisement. Besides some “light” viruses, like adware or unwanted programs, you can likewise receive something far more threatening, like ransomware or coin miner; the big share of coin miners distribution is exactly after the malicious ads.

People dislike popups

The statistic shows that people dislike popup advertising more than other types of promotions

Potentially unwanted programs, like Matrixstar.net pop-up virus may cause a variety of problems on your PC. Distracting is not the only problem – pop-ups may show you the advertisements, where you are offered to get one more unknown program, or “a amazing security tool”. Scareware is usually distributed with the use of the last motto. Potentially unwanted applications, in turn, may have spyware functionality. And it is pretty hard to distinguish the unwanted app from a normal one, if you don’t know the exact names. Besides the PUPs and fake antiviruses, popup-related ads are also exploited as a distribution method by different trojan viruses, for instance – coin miners. The consequences of actions of such malware is 100% unpleasant, and can cost you several hundreds of dollars. And even if you are not interacting with these banners, they can be clicked by someone who also makes use of your personal computer – parents, children, spouse, etc. So the things can become much more serious, and it will be much harder to solve it without information loss. It is recommended to get rid of the viruses with anti-malware applications as soon as possible.

How can I get rid of Matrixstar.net pop-up advertisements?

The tutorial of Matrixstar.net adware elimination contains 2 sections. First, we need to eliminate the malware, and after that take care of the effects of its action. The removal task is pretty simple, because it can be executed even with using Microsoft Defender – security program that is available on all personal computers with Windows 8/10. Nonetheless, because of its large resources usage, as well as some problems that may be pivotal for some kinds of users, Defender is often turned off by the users, so its usage is most likely impossible. What’s more, various trojan viruses are able to turn off the embedded antivirus. It is far better to use the separated program that will not have such vulnerabilities.

I would certainly recommend you to use Gridinsoft Anti-Malware2 – a well-proven antivirus tool that will certainly exterminate the viruses from your personal computer and also make an invulnerable shield with a Proactive protection function. However, let’s take care of Matrixstar.net adware first.

Removing Matrixstar.net popup virus with GridinSoft Anti-Malware

  • Download and install GridinSoft Anti-Malware. After the installation, you will be offered to perform the Standard Scan. Approve this action.
  • Gridinsoft Anti-Malware during the scan process

  • Standard scan checks the logical disk where the system files are stored, together with the files of programs you have already installed. The scan lasts up to 6 minutes.
  • GridinSoft Anti-Malware scan results

  • When the scan is over, you may choose the action for each detected virus. For all files of Matrixstar.net malware the default option is “Delete”. Press “Apply” to finish the malware removal.
  • GridinSoft Anti-Malware - After Cleaning

Now, when the computer is clean of viruses, we can proceed to the browser reset. You can do this step manually, as well as with the use of GridinSoft Anti-Malware.

Reset browser settings to default

Manual method of browser reset

To reset Edge, do the following steps :
  1. Open “Settings and more” tab in upper right corner, then find here “Settings” button. In the appeared menu, choose “Reset settings” option :
  2. Reseting the Edge browser

  3. After picking the Reset Settings option, you will see the following menu, stating about the settings which will be reverted to original :
For Mozilla Firefox, do the next actions :
  1. Open Menu tab (three strips in upper right corner) and click the “Help” button. In the appeared menu choose “troubleshooting information” :
  2. The first step to revert Mozilla Firefox

  3. In the next screen, find the “Refresh Firefox” option :
  4. The second step of Firefox restoration
    After choosing this option, you will see the next message :
    The last step for Firefox
If you use Google Chrome
  1. Open Settings tab, find the “Advanced” button. In the extended tab choose the “Reset and clean up” button :
  2. In the appeared list, click on the “Restore settings to their original defaults” :
  3. Finally, you will see the window, where you can see all the settings which will be reset to default :
Opera can be reset in the next way
  1. Open Settings menu by pressing the gear icon in the toolbar (left side of the browser window), then click “Advanced” option, and choose “Browser” button in the drop-down list. Scroll down, to the bottom of the settings menu. Find there “Restore settings to their original defaults” option :

  2. After clicking the “Restore settings…” button, you will see the window, where all settings, which will be reset, are shown :

When the browsers are reset, you need to make sure that your browser will definitely connect the appropriate DNS while connecting to the web page you want. Make a text file titled “hosts” on your pc’s desktop, after that open it and fill it with the following text3:

# Copyright (c) 1993-2006 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a ‘#’ symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host
# localhost name resolution is handle within DNS itself.
# 127.0.0.1 localhost
# ::1 localhost

Find the hosts.txt file in C:/Windows/System32/drivers/etc directory. Rename this file to “hosts.old.txt” (to distinguish it from the new one), and then move the file you created on the desktop to this folder. Remove the hosts.old from this folder. Now you have your hosts file as good as new.

Nevertheless, there is one issue that makes things a lot harder to restore, especially without the anti-malware program. The majority of adware variants that are used to show you the Matrixstar.net pop-up advertisements are modifying the deep browser configurations, disabling an access to the settings tab. So, if you try to fix your browser settings after your PC was penetrated by pop-up-related malware, your browser will collapse soon. In some cases, you will see no crash, however, large lag spike after pressing the “settings” key. Browser will stop responding for ~ 30 secs, and then it will be back to the normal, until you try to open settings once again.

Reset your browser settings with GridinSoft Anti-Malware

To reset your browser with GridinSoft Anti-Malware, open the Tools tab, and click the “Reset browser settings” button.

Tools tab in GridinSoft Anti-Malware

You can see the list of the options for each browser. By default, they are set up in the manner which fits the majority of users. Press the “Reset” button (lower right corner). In a minute your browser will be as good as new.

Reset Browser Settings tab in GridinSoft Anti-Malware

The browser reset is recommended to perform through the antivirus tool by GridinSoft, because last is also able to reset the HOSTS file without any additional commands.

How to Remove Matrixstar.net Pop-ups?

Name: Matrixstar.net

Description: Matrixstar.net - a lot of users became a target for the pop-up advertisements. I have a lot of friends who literally bombed me with the questions like “how to remove Matrixstar.net push notifications?” or “why do Matrixstar.net pop-ups keep appearing on Chrome even after AdBlock installation?”. In this article we will show you how to deal with Matrixstar.net pop-ups, which may corrupt your browser’s correct performance, and create a lot of troubles while you are working.

Operating System: Windows

Application Category: Adware

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References

  1. More about pop-up advertisements on Wikipedia.
  2. GridinSoft Anti-Malware review and also the reasons why I suggest it for malware removal.
  3. Official Microsoft guide for hosts file reset.

About the author

Wilbur Woodham

I was a technical writer from early in my career, and consider IT Security one of my foundational skills. I’m sharing my experience here, and I hope you find it useful.

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